Over the past couple of years, my team and I at Ringleader Ventures have talked to over 2,000 founders, and we’ve noticed that many of them are so infatuated with their particular idea that they’re unable or unwilling to accept constructive feedback. In their passionate development of their innovative thingamajig, they inadvertently build up a resistance to externally generated ideas that might be even newer and better still. If you find yourself spending more time tearing apart alternate approaches than you spend selling folks on the merits of your approach, you might be stuck inside the jar.
Key Takeaways:
- The blood, sweat & tears they’ve invested to date make it psychologically and emotionally difficult to pull out of an existing attack pattern.
- The truth is, sometimes your business can really benefit from the objective, “civilian” perspective of an outsider.
- Spend less time dreaming up new ideas, and more time working to uncover a deep necessity held by a deep customer base with deep pockets.
“This one is simple to describe, but tricky to beat. Founders resist accepting feedback because they take pride in the sheer novelty and uniqueness of their personal idea.”
